August 24, 2021 | International, Aerospace
December 9, 2020 | International, Aerospace
Secret Bomber Programs Set For Possible Rollouts In 2021
Steve Trimble December 09, 2020
Strategic bombers are enjoying a stealthy renaissance against a backdrop of renewed competition among “great power” states: namely, the U.S., China and Russia.
For more than a decade, all three countries have labored to push a new generation of stealth bombers into service under programs cloaked in secrecy, while at the same time expanding the capacity and quality of an aging bomber fleet. The first fruits of the new stealth-bomber generation may become visibly tangible to the public in 2021.
Although the U.S. Air Force has backed off from a schedule revealed in July 2018 to fly the Northrop Grumman B-21 Raider for the first time on Dec. 4, 2021, the first aircraft still may emerge from Building 401 on Site 4 at Plant 42 in Palmdale, California, during the next 12 months.
The Air Force's new schedule calls for first flight of the B-21 in 2022. Given the traditional 6-9-month period of outdoor ground testing in advance of any first flight by a new aircraft, the updated schedule still implies a strong chance of a factory rollout during the second half of 2021.
Less is known of the construction status of China's first stealthy, flying-wing bomber, probably named the H-20. Since 2018, the U.S. Defense Department has estimated in annual reports to Congress that the H-20 is likely to be a stealthy, subsonic bomber resembling the Northrop B-2 or X-47B, with a range of at least 4,590 nm (8,500 km) and payload capacity of conventional and nuclear munitions totaling at least 10 metric tons. In 2019, the department added that the H-20 could “debut” during the 2020s.
If the Pentagon's range estimate for the H-20 is accurate, it falls well short of the U.S. West Coast but encompasses most of the northern Pacific Ocean, including Alaska and Hawaii. A rollout and first flight remain possible in 2021. A corporate video by the Aviation Industry Corp. of China, the H-20's corporate developer, released at the end of 2019 teased that the H-20's unveiling would come “shortly.”
In Russia, the Prospective Aviation Complex for Long-Range Aviation (PAK DA) bomber likely transitioned into the production phase during 2020. Satellite photos in early spring revealed a large new factory being erected inside Tupolev's industrial complex in Kazan. By May, major structural assemblies for the first test aircraft had entered construction, according to a report by TASS. The same report, citing two anonymous sources inside Russia's defense industry, put the schedule for completing final assembly in 2021.
All three programs represent the first new bomber designs initiated since the Cold War. Service-entry schedules for the three have not been announced but will be coming around 30 years after Northrop's first-generation stealth bomber—the flying-wing, four-engine B-2A—became operational in 1997.
The impact on the defense industry could be profound as production ramps up over the next decade.
For the B-21, low-rate initial production should begin in 2022, Northrop CEO Kathy Warden says. That timetable suggests production-aircraft deliveries beginning two years later.
Due to the secretive nature of the program managed by the Air Force's Rapid Capabilities Office, precise B-21 production unit costs are unknown. At the time of contract award in October 2015, the Air Force estimated the average B-21 unit cost over a production run of 80-100 aircraft would be about $550 million in 2012 dollars. Adjusting for inflation, the average cost has increased to about $632 million.
With Pentagon officials expecting budgets to remain flat or decline over the next several years, one of the Air Force's biggest challenges will be finding ways to reduce costs in other programs to accommodate the B-21 as production ramps up.
With the ability to fly in proximity and even within defended airspace, a stealth bomber offers an ideal combination of survivability, range and weapons capacity. The aircraft's stealthiness adds substantially to the production cost, but the trade-off is an aircraft that can carry less expensive, short-range weapons such as glide bombs.
None of the great powers, however, is willing to part completely with an existing bomber fleet, despite aircraft designs that date back to the late 1940s. Leveraging heavy investments in new propulsion, sensors and weapons, the U.S., China and Russia will breathe new life into their aging Cold War-era platforms.
By June 2021, the U.S. Air Force expects to award a contract for delivery of 608 new jet engines for 76 Boeing B-52s, replacing a fleet of 60-year-old, 17,000-lb.-thrust Pratt & Whitney TF-33-P-3 turbofans. GE Aviation's Passport and CF34, Pratt's PW800 and Rolls-Royce's BR.725-based F130 are the Air Force's options, with each representing a multi-generational leap in fuel efficiency and reliability.
The Air Force also will demonstrate that Cold War bombers can perform a new role in the 2020s. A pylon modification will allow the B-52 to carry up to 22,000 lb. on each external hard point, enabling the aircraft to carry three Lockheed Martin AGM-183A Air-Launched Rapid Response Weapons on either wing.
Boeing upgraded both conventional rotary launchers inside the weapons bays to carry up to eight cruise missiles each. If a new generation of scramjet-powered hypersonic cruise missiles now in development matches the size and weight of the AGM-86s now carried by the rotary launchers, each B-52 would be able to carry 22 long-range hypersonic missiles.
A similar transformation will be demonstrated by the B-1B. In mid November, Air Force Global Strike Command showed a B-1B could accommodate a subsonic Lockheed AGM-158 Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile (Jassm) on an external pylon. By extension, each of the B-1B's six external pylons could be adapted to carry hypersonic missiles such as the AGM-183s. Another eight hypersonic cruise missiles could be fired from the conventional rotary launcher inside the B-1B's weapons bays.
Draft appropriations bills for fiscal 2021 in Congress include the Air Force's request to retire 17 B-1s and funnel the operating-cost savings to modernize what would be the remaining 45 aircraft in the fleet.
The bomber renaissance also is seeing transformation of the Cold War-era fleets of the Chinese and Russian air forces.
In mid-November, the People's Liberation Army Navy for the first time deployed the Xian H-6J to Yongxing Island, also known as Woody Island, in the South China Sea. While still unmistakably a descendant of the first Tupolev Tu-16 Badger delivered to China in 1958, the H-6J remains a potent weapon system against the U.S. Navy's Pacific Fleet, especially while armed with YJ-12 anti-ship missiles.
Likewise, the People's Liberation Army Air Force revealed the H-6N in October 2019, showing China's first nuclear-capable bomber with the ability to be refueled in flight. Government-owned magazine Modern Ships published photos a month later of the H-6N carrying an air-launched ballistic missile in a recessed cavity carved into the fuselage. The weapon could be a medium-range, anti-ship DF-21. More recently, photos appeared of the H-6N carrying a different air-launched missile with a payload bearing a profile similar to the DF-17 hypersonic glide vehicle.
Russia's bomber fleet modernization also extends beyond development of the PAK DA. Over the past year, the first versions of Tu-160 and Tu-95 bombers fitted with new engines have entered flight testing. Meanwhile, a second Tu-22M3M prototype entered flight testing in 2020, joining the first prototype that entered testing in December 2018 with new engines, avionics and missiles, including supersonic air-launched Kh-32s.
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June 25, 2019 | International, Naval
Navy Refining How Data Analytics Could Predict Ship Maintenance Needs
By: Ben Werner WASHINGTON, D.C. – Extending the lifespans of existing ships using data-driven maintenance efforts is the best strategy for achieving a 355- ship navy, said the Naval Sea Systems Command chief engineer. The key to maintaining ships and enabling the Navy to extend their lifespans is data analytics, Rear Adm. Lorin Selby, the chief engineer and deputy commander of ship design, integration and naval engineering at NAVSEA, said Thursday at the American Society of Naval Engineers' annual Technology, Systems & Ship symposium. “I have ships with a number of sensors on them, measuring things like reduction gears, showering components, turbines, generators, water jets, air conditioning plants, high packs, a number of components, and we're actually pulling data off those ships, in data acquisition systems,” Selby said. At the Naval Surface Warfare Center Philadelphia Division, Selby's team is analyzing data gleaned from smaller ship component operations to determine how often such components need servicing, oil changes, filter changes, other maintenance actions and replacement. The process is called condition-based maintenance plus (CBM+), and Selby wants CBM to drive improvements in maintaining ships. “That's one of the things we're doing to get after utilizing the technology we have today to operate the ships we have today more efficiently and more effectively,” Selby said. The Navy has dabbled with CBM for years. A 2008 Department of Defense Conditions Based Maintenance Plus guidebook mentions NAVSEA efforts. However, two years ago at the ASNE TSS symposium, NAVSEA Commander Vice Adm. Tom Moore told USNI News that the Navy's use of CBM had perhaps gone too far and was disrupting the shipyards' ability to plan for large maintenance jobs properly. During previous attempts at incorporating CBM, there was a thought that, if major efforts like refurbishing tanks were only done when needed, rather than on a predetermined timetable, the Navy could avoid spending time and money on work ahead of need. However, that also meant that shipyards wouldn't have a clear work package before a ship showed up at the pier, adding uncertainty and, ultimately, more time and cost into the maintenance availability. This time around, Selby sees condition-based maintenance as a way to address smaller maintenance items in such a way that data analysis points a ship crew to components that are experiencing minor performance issues or otherwise showing signs they are about to fail before the failure actually occurs. This summer, a pilot program using enterprise remote monitoring will occur on an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer, he said. Data collected will be sent for analysis, and operators will learn how to use the data to understand how their systems are performing and if maintenance or repairs are needed. Selby wants to have a system of apps the Navy can use to collect data from ship components, analyze the data, share it with operators and schedule work. He wants to hold a competition for app developers to create apps the Navy will test for use in the fleet. Describing his vision, Selby said, “the systems that will be monitoring, say the turbine; it will tell the operators when a work procedure has to be performed and it will also then tap into the work package side of the house and generate a work package that gets sent to the ship, to the work center, to do the work. And if there's a part involved, it will be able to pull a part from the supply system.” Testing is occurring now, but Selby concedes there are some obstacles the Navy has to overcome before large-scale deployment. The Navy is struggling with how to transmit data securely, something Selby discussed during an earlier session at the symposium. The data also has to be secured. “The performance of any given asset is something we want to hold close. So I think what you have to do is you have to architect this from kind of the get-go with that kind of security mindset in mind,” Selby said. “You can harvest that data and you could potentially discover vulnerabilities, so you have to protect that. That's part of my project: as I do this, we're bringing that security aspect into the program.” Extending the lifespan of the Navy's current fleet is essential if the Navy is going to grow to 355-ships, Moore said during his keynote address after Selby spoke Thursday. The Navy, military planners at the Pentagon, the White House and lawmakers are all anxious to reach 355 ships as soon as possible because Moore said current forces are stretched too thin. “We in the Navy, we don't have enough forces to go everywhere we need to go, and we have a pretty fragile mix of ships, so that when we miss an availability coming out on time, or we don't build something to the schedule they're supposed to build to, there are real-world consequences to that,” Moore said. The true determining factor of whether a ship's lifespan can be extended, Moore said, is the platform's flexibility. The Arleigh Burke-class is the Navy's workhorse today because, during the past 30 years, the Navy has successfully updated its operating systems. Moving forward, Moore said extending the life of the ships in this class means back-fitting many of the older Flight I and Flight II with a scaled-back version of the AN/SPY-6(V) Air and Missile Defense Radar (AMDR) to keep these ships relevant to current and future mission needs. “If you're willing to do the maintenance on the ships, from a hull and mechanical perspective, you absolutely can keep them longer,” Moore said. “The issue is really not can you keep them 50 years; the issue is can they maintain combat relevance. If they can maintain combat relevance, we know we can keep them longer.” https://news.usni.org/2019/06/24/navy-refining-how-data-analytics-could-predict-ship-maintenance-needs
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August 8, 2018 | International, Aerospace
Lockheed Martin claims both USAF hypersonic programmes
BY: STEPHEN TRIMBLE The US Air Force has selected Lockheed Martin to rapidly develop and field both new hypersonic missiles launched as a response to surprise developments in high-speed weapons by China and Russia, newly-released acquisition documents confirm. The service already announced a $928 million award in April deal for Lockheed's Missiles and Space company to develop the Hypersonic Conventional Strike Weapon (HCSW, pronounced “Hacksaw”). But a new document reveals that the USAF awarded a separate deal to Lockheed's Missiles and Fire Control division in July 2017 to rapidly develop and field the Air-launched Rapid Response Weapon (ARRW, pronounced “Arrow”). The ARRW, now assigned the designation AGM-183A, evolves from the Tactical Boost Glide (TBG) programme launched in 2014 by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). By using a rocket to boost the missile to very high altitudes, the unpowered ARRW then glides down to lower altitudes at speeds up to Mach 20. Full Article: https://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/lockheed-martin-claims-both-usaf-hypersonic-programm-450968/